"Now that you're done eating. Let me explain our plan."
He had already tucked the Azure sustain back into its container.
Asylia sat down and walked him through their carefully mapped route — every countermeasure, every predicted threat, every possible accident they could think of.
Ren nodded and listened. Really listened.
Each word she said, he turned over in his mind, pressing it in like a seal. He wasn't going to forget this. For him, this wasn't just information. It was the shape of staying alive.
Asylia reached up and pulled the tie from her ponytail. With a single slow sweep of her hand, her long hair fell like a curtain drawn closed — smooth and straight, fine threads gathering into one quiet cascade.
"....and if you notice anything amiss, or you have any ideas — you must say it to us. Understood?"
She added it seriously. Not as a formality. She meant it. Because what if he caught something they missed and made a move none of them could explain in time?
Sensing the weight behind her voice, Ren made an okay sign with his hand.
"Don't worry. If I've got a plan, I promise I'll tell you. Alright?"
She smiled — bright and unhesitating — and casually held him to that promise.
In the small warmth of their exchange, the cold room slowly came alive. Like something human had touched the walls.
After a while, Asylia turned her head toward the bathroom.
Ren followed her gaze.
Serein was walking toward them without a sound. She was brushing her azure hair — still wet, still clinging slightly to her neck. It looked like she had just stepped out of the shower. Her uniform had changed too. The new one was a tight design that followed the lines of her figure without apology.
She was surprisingly curvy for someone so tall. Full in the right places, thighs carrying quiet strength underneath.
She would've looked like someone people stopped to stare at — if it weren't for that face. Naturally still. Unbothered by default. Like a goddess who had long since stopped noticing the room she walked into.
As if feeling their eyes on her, she lifted her gaze slightly and looked in his direction.
*Shit. She's looking.*
Ren turned his head away fast, not daring to hold eye contact. A strange feeling crept in — like being caught mid-thought doing something he shouldn't be.
"Serein. Are you ready?"
Serein didn't react to their staring. She reached into her things and pulled out a transparent disc — embedded in a small dark-blue metal square, its surface traced with complex lines too fine to follow with just a glance.
*Wait. That looks like what Asylia gave me.*
Ren thought to himself, watching.
"Yeah. We can go."
She clicked it. The disc shifted — slowly, deliberately — like a miniature transformer waking up. Dark blue-black material crept over her slender fingers, threading upward along her arms, spreading across her shoulders and down the rest of her body like a living thing that already knew exactly where it belonged.
It wrapped her like armor. Every part of her covered and fitted, except for her face — left exposed behind a clean transparent visor.
Through the helmet, Ren could just barely make out her eyes. They seemed fixed on something he couldn't see. Something inside.
"How do you feel?"
Asylia leaned in slightly, bending down to get a closer look, curiosity pulling at the corners of her expression.
"It's... not bad."
Her voice came out a little muffled beneath the helmet.
Serein raised one hand, studying the suit as it finished settling over her arms and torso. It wasn't unpleasant — not even close. More like wearing a second skin that happened to also be armor. Light despite what it looked like.
Though compared to a few she'd tested before, there wasn't anything that stood out as remarkable — except for one thing—
Ren's eyes hadn't moved from the suit. He was staring at the clean lines of it, the way it shifted when she moved. It didn't look heavy. It *moved* like it wasn't. Like it was built to be an extension of the person wearing it rather than a shell around them.
"This... This is what we're going to wear?"
He murmured it more to himself than anyone.
All he could manage after that was—
"Awesome!"
Which boy hasn't dreamed of wearing armor at least once? Sure, in this world it might just be the equivalent of a lifejacket — practical equipment, nothing more. But to him it looked like everything he'd imagined as a kid watching movies and anime late at night, quietly promising himself he'd be the one catching criminals and stopping something great while wearing something like *that*.
Though honestly — even back then he wasn't sure if it was because he genuinely wanted to do good, or if he just really, really wanted to wear the cool thing.
Either way, reality had ground that dream down over time. Worn it smooth like a stone until it rolled to the back of a drawer somewhere. Dusty. Forgotten.
But now—
Something old caught light again.
He pulled out the device Asylia had given him — the same kind Serein had used — and turned it in his hands.
He hadn't expected this day to deliver *that.*
It didn't make him careless, though. He couldn't just use it without asking. What if it had limited charges? A cooldown he didn't know about? He wasn't about to burn through something critical for a test.
"The suit still has plenty of power and oxygen. Should last a good while — probably until we reach safety."
Serein stated it plainly, already pulling the helmet off her head as she spoke. As she did, her still-damp hair slipped over her shoulders — looking lighter now, loosened from the wash.
"Good!"
Asylia's smile came fast and warm, exactly like Ren had expected it to.
"Alright. Let's test for a few minutes and then we move!"
She clapped once — a single, clean sound that snapped through the quiet room.
With that, each of them fell into what they needed to do before the move.
Serein settled herself near the far window, facing the ocean outside. Silent. Still. Whatever she was thinking, she kept it behind her eyes.
Asylia murmured to herself as she ran through her checklist, her voice too low to make out, hands moving with the quiet efficiency of someone who had prepared for things like this before.
As for me?
I looked out at both of them through the visor.
They said I could put the suit on — just to get a feel of it before we left.
I didn't need to be told twice.
And—
It wasn't anything like I imagined.
The inside wasn't dim or closed-in. It was *lit*. A faint, clean glow picked up by the panels settled at the edge of my vision.
{Oxygen Capacity: 98%}
{Power: 99%}
The readouts cast a soft light across my face.
My vision stayed clear. Nothing blocked, nothing warped. It was just — there. Information layered over the world without getting in the way of it.
I didn't need a manual to understand them. The first one explained itself. The second told me how much the suit had left to give — power behind the functions I hadn't even tested yet.
Then I found the modes.
{Mode: Land / Water}
Two settings. Land — which was what I had on now — and Water, which shifted the suit's structure for diving. Built for pressure and current, not just surface movement.
*There's more than that too.*
I thought to myself as the light across my face shifted slightly — the visor's film activating, sealing the transparent panel against outside eyes. From the outside, I was hidden. From the inside, I could still see everything.
I raised my hands and moved them slowly, getting used to the weight. Surprisingly little resistance. My arms felt my arms. My fingers felt my fingers.
I tested a small jump — there was drag, just a breath of it — but not enough to slow me down seriously.
I exhaled slowly behind the visor.
*Yeah. This'll do.*
Satisfaction settled in my chest, steady and full. The kind that comes when something you wanted for a long time finally lands in your hands and turns out to be exactly what you hoped.
"Nice."
Time passed quietly as the last preparations came together.
*Tick.*
"It's time."
Serein checked her phone — still working, somehow — then announced it softly and pulled the helmet back over her head.
"Alright. Let's go."
Asylia's voice came out muffled through the suit, but the steadiness in it didn't waver.
All three of them now suited up, bags secured on their backs. Visors down. Ready.
At a glance, they looked exactly like what they were — a group with somewhere to be and something at stake.
And they were.
I faced the closed door. Flexed my hand once — felt the strange, restless energy gathering in my palm, threading up through my forearm like it knew what was coming.
*I'm ready.*
I gave a short nod as Asylia moved to the door and began to open it — slow, careful.
*Click.*
The soft sound of the lock releasing. The door that had kept them safe opened up, inch by inch.
I don't know if it was the nerves — but my thoughts sharpened instantly. Everything tuned in. No background noise.
Through the widening gap, the outside air seeped in like it had been waiting. Heavy. Patient. Curling in through the opening like something feeling its way inside.
I kept my eyes fixed on it. Didn't blink.
The silence stretched.
Just when I'd half-convinced myself something horrible was waiting right on the other side of that door—
There was nothing.
"Clear."
Serein confirmed it. Her senses had reached out ahead of her body and found only empty space.
She stepped through first, eyes sweeping both directions down the corridor before she turned right and moved.
Asylia followed — smooth, practiced. Like she'd walked out of dangerous rooms before.
I was right behind her.
Outside, the corridor felt dimmer than it had before. Whether the bioluminescent lights along the lower corners had faded, or whether the ocean pressing against the glass outside had darkened — I couldn't tell.
Neither possibility was good.
Behind me, the door eased shut on its own. The sound it made was barely a whisper — but the weight of it landed heavier than that. This was it. No going back through that door. This operation was all or nothing.
Then again — from the moment the disaster hit, moving forward was the only direction that ever existed. A glimmer ahead. That's all they were chasing.
Asylia stayed half a meter in front of me. Serein cut a meter ahead of her.
There was a reason for that. Serein's senses reached further than ours. She could pick up something wrong before the rest of us even registered the air had changed.
My steps felt heavier than theirs — the suit, still unfamiliar to my legs — while both of them moved like they were wearing nothing at all.
I didn't have time to dwell on it. They both slowed suddenly, pulling toward a corner.
I ducked in behind them.
I glanced back down the corridor we'd come from. Dark. Solid walls on either side with only a thin line of faint ceiling light ahead. No windows here. No ocean view. Just the quiet and whatever was sharing it with us.
"We're at the intersection."
Serein pulled up the 3D map, marked their position, confirmed it against the route.
"To reach the stairs, we take this side."
She pointed right. Their planned path. Exactly where they'd mapped it.
"But."
A pause.
"There's something in the ceiling. It doesn't feel friendly." Her eyes had gone still beneath the visor — fixed on one point above the right corridor with the kind of precision that didn't leave room for doubt. "Should we go left?"
She said it low. Measured.
*What?*
Ren looked. He couldn't see a thing. Not a shadow, not a shift, nothing. But he believed her without needing to.
A second later, Asylia caught it too — whatever faint signal Serein had already locked onto. Her brow pulled together inside the suit.
Left wasn't an option. The detour was too far, and they couldn't keep choosing retreat every time something blocked the path. That wasn't a strategy — that was just stalling.
"Serein. Ren." Asylia's voice stayed even. "You've both gone over our tactics for when we have to fight. Right?"
Ren nodded once.